What are safety behaviors, and how do they affect anxiety?

• A. Actions taken to reduce fear or avoid danger; they maintain anxiety by preventing disconfirmation of fears.
• B. Behaviors that increase fear and escalate anxiety.
• C. Cognitive strategies used to modify thoughts.
• D. Unrelated rituals that do not relate to fear.

Answer: (A)

Safety behaviors are actions people take to prevent or reduce a feared outcome or to feel safer in anxiety-provoking situations. They feel helpful in the moment because they lessen distress, but they end up keeping anxiety going in the long run because they prevent you from testing whether the feared danger is real. When you rely on these behaviors, you don’t get the chance to learn that you can cope without them, so the fear remains or even grows when the safety aid isn’t possible. In treatment, reducing or eliminating safety behaviors helps the person learn through exposure that the feared outcome is unlikely and that they can handle the situation, leading to real decreases in anxiety over time.

In other options, safety behaviors aren’t simply actions that increase fear; they’re about reducing fear in the moment while maintaining it overall. They aren’t cognitive strategies for changing thoughts, but rather concrete actions. They’re also not unrelated rituals; many rituals are safety behaviors because their purpose is to feel safe in the face of fear.